Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Made warm or hot: The state of having been increased in temperature. This is the literal, physical meaning.
   • Agitated, excited, or angry: A figurative meaning describing a state of emotional intensity or arousal. (Note: This meaning is often associated with the variant "het up").

Examples of Usage

• Adjective (Literal - Made warm):
  • She served the heated-up soup. (The soup was cold and then made warm again.)
  • The room became heated up after the sun shone through the windows all afternoon.
• Adjective (Figurative - Agitated):
  • The debate got everyone heated up. (The debate caused people to become emotionally excited or angry.)
  • He was all heated up about the unfair decision. (He was very agitated or angry about it.)

Advanced Usage

• "Het up": This is a dialectal or informal variant of "heated up," almost exclusively used for the figurative, emotional meaning. It is often written as two words.
  • There's no need to get all het up over a small mistake. (There's no need to become so agitated.)

Variants and Related Words

• Heat up (phrasal verb): To make or become warm or hot; to make or become more intense or active.
  • Can you heat up this coffee for me? (Make it warm.)
  • The competition is starting to heat up. (Become more intense.)
• Heated (adjective): Made hot; characterized by anger or excitement.
  • a heated argument (an angry, intense argument)
• Het (adjective, dialectal): A variant of "heated," primarily used in the phrase "het up."

Synonyms

• Warmed, reheated (for the literal meaning).
• Agitated, worked up, excited, riled up, inflamed (for the figurative meaning).

Related Phrasal Verbs

• Heat up: As noted above, this is the verb form from which the adjective "heated up" is derived. It means to increase in temperature or intensity.
  • I'll heat up some leftovers for dinner.
  • Tensions began to heat up between the rival groups.

Related Idioms

• To get hot under the collar: To become angry or agitated. This idiom is similar to the figurative use of "heated up."
  • He gets hot under the collar whenever someone criticizes his work.

Adjective

1. made warm or hot (`het' is a dialectal variant of `heated')
   • a heated swimming pool
   • wiped his heated-up face with a large bandana
   • he was all het up and sweaty